Cairo

Egypt Museum, Cairo: A sprawling building with multiple sections, we managed to check only some important aspects of the museum. The place has hundreds of artefacts from ancient Egypt. Here, we got acquainted with the two famous Kings/Pharaohs Ramses II and Tutankhamun. The latter is famous not for his achievements, but because his was the only tomb that was recovered with very less damage and about 4500 items were extracted from his burial tomb. The museum contains most of these items, 6 of the 7 coffins/sarcophagus found in his tomb,face mask made of gold and other jewellery. The intricacy of the various works made about 3000 years ago is simply amazing.

The museum also has mummys discovered in the tombs. Though photography is not allowed as is, I can safely say that real mummies look very different from the ones we see in movies/TV etc. !

Egyptians strongly believed in the life after death concept. The tombs/pyramids were built as burial chambers for the kings where materials, inscriptions etc. were placed to aid the dead person to smoothly move into after life. They believed that the dead person has to undergo some challenges to make this transition and the endeavour of the burial tombs is to help the person to undergo these challenges. They had various Gods and many of the writings/ paintings refer to the king/queen praying to these various gods.


Pyramids and the Sphinx, Giza: I think most of us associate the pyramids with the Egypt more than anything else. The pyramids of Giza lie about 30 Kms away from main Cairo seprated by the Nile and both together form the Greater Cairo City.

The pyramids are again burial tombs built during the Old Kingdom period and the three main pyramids correspond to 3 kings (grandfather, father and son). The sphinx is present in front of the second pyramid.

These are majestic buildings and I believe, the actual secret chambers of the pyramids are yet to be found. The size of the structures is amazing.. and apparently each of the stones in the pyramid weigh close to 2 tonnes.

We also did a small trip into the third small pyramid and were left breathless.. a lovely experience.

The pyramids again show the belief of ancient Egyptians about after life. The majestic buildings and the sphinx show the skills of man close to 3500 years ago.

We have majestic buildings in India as well, but most have been erected in the A.D. era. The beauty of Egypt lies in the fact that most of these buildings have been build in the B.C era - many thousands of years ago.

We came back to the pyramids again for the Sounds and Light show - a magnificent presentation about the pyramids and the evolution of ancient Egypt. The sight of the sphinx and the pyramids in the lights is a wonderful sight. A must see aspect of the tour.. just ensure you carry some jackets on to handle the cold desert ;)!

B

Egypt - The Trip

Our choice of Egypt is a story by itself.. The original plan for a vacation included catching up with family, but the trip got derailed due to visa issues. We kinda immediately decided we would go to Egypt without much forethought and booked our vacation with a seasoned tour operator.

Then came the advises. We came to know Egypt was under turmoil and there were agitations going on for establishing democracy in the country. We had everybody advising us against going to Egypt - family, friends, colleagues etc. Perhaps due to the fact that we desperately needed a break or because we were too tied up at work and home to think too seriously about the issue - we decided to go ahead with the trip.

S ( my husband, who BTW has never been introduced in this blog before) generally prefers to plan his trips on his own. But, Egypt was a different proposition, we generally agreed taking a group tour was the best option.

We commenced our journey and landed in Cairo by flight. Our trip started in earnest the next day. Our tour guide was the old young man Mr. Abdul Aziz - note I call him young! He was an enthusiastic old man and being an archaeologist and an Egyptologist - his insight was invaluable to form our impressions about Egypt and its ancient culture.

The subsequent blog entries will list the places we visited and some of my impressions of them.

B

Egypt

After a year long break!! I see my last post was exactly a year ago.. things have changed dramatically since then. But the reason I come out of my long slumber is not to discuss these changes, but to jot down memories of a memorable trip to Egypt, lest I forget them.

So here goes the details...